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SUOZZI CAMP: THIS CAMPAIGN IS ABOUT PEOPLE AND ISSUES, NOT LEGAL BATTLES

September 9, 2016

SUOZZI CAMP: THIS CAMPAIGN IS ABOUT PEOPLE AND ISSUES, NOT LEGAL BATTLES
Suozzi campaign withdraws Fix Washington petitions to focus instead on issue-oriented town halls

(Nassau County, NY) - After spending over $50,000 in legal bills and thousands of volunteer hours, today the Suozzi for Congress campaign withdrew their Fix Washington petitions and will refocus their efforts on issue-oriented town hall meetings and engaging people on the tough problems we face.

“Over a month ago, we submitted over 5700 names of voters in the third district who believe we need to fix Washington, however since then, because of Jack Martins petty, political insider games, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars havebeen wasted in court battles, line by line nitpickiness, referees, and countless hours of legal one-upmanship," said Mike Florio, Suozzi 2016 campaign manager.

Shortly after the Suozzi campaign submitted the Fix Washington petitions on August 2nd, Republican candidate Jack Martins challenged the petitions and asked a court to throw all 5723 signatures out claiming they were all fraudulent. On August 23, Judge James McCormack dismissed the fraud allegations.

"There is little doubt that if we battled Martins for the next two months, Fix Washington would prevail, just like Philip "Flip" Pidot did with his Republican petitions," stated Florio, "however while engaging in the legal quagmire that Jack Martins has tried to make this campaign about, Tom believes that important issues that actually affect people’s lives, like social security, the economy and national security, are getting lost and it's not worth it."

The Suozzi campaign noted that everything that Martins has attempted to do with the Fix Washington petitions is representative of the kind of politics and politicians that we have permeating not only Albany, but in Washington as well.

"This is the kind of nitpicky, insider manipulation of the system for your own agenda that Tom Suozzi has fought against with Albany, and wants to go to Washington to fight,” said Florio.

Suozzi has a long and proven record of being independent and has demonstrated time and time again that he is willing to stand up to the powerful interests, even those in his own Party, to make the big changes needed to improve his constituents' lives. Suozzi is running for Congress to go to Washington to fix a broken system that is dominated by special interests, lobbyists and elected officials who only worry about getting re-elected, rather than actually serving the people who sent them there.

In addition to asking the Court to throw out the entire Fix Washington petitions, and being denied, Martins has also spent the last month forcing the Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and New York City Boards of Elections to comb through every single one of the 5723 signatures and throw out signatures for minor infractions such as illegible signatures, mistakes in addresses and voters who printed their names instead of signing them in script.

Pledging to continue the Fix Washington campaign and after holding 16 town halls during the Democratic primary, today, Suozzi also announced the first of six issue-oriented town halls between now and the general election. The first town hall will be in Great Neck on September 20, 2016 and will focus on the economy, jobs and taxes.